Video Card Brands Difference!

H

heldtbt

New Member
Hi I am building my first system and I need a video card... I want an ATI Radeon and from looking around I have realized that there are the true ATI brand cards with the ATI Radeon chipset and there are also the third party brands with the same ATI Radeon chipset for MUCH cheaper!

Are these cards the same as the true ATI brand cards even though they are much cheaper? I want a good card with a limited budget. If the third party brand ATI cards are good: What would be some reccomended brand names of the cards.

Any replys would be greatly appreciated thanks!
 
and also... some cards say they have opengl 1.3 and some say open gl 2.0. Can you upgrade the 1.3 cards to 2.0 or is it permanent and do I need to get 2.0 because of that.
 
heldtbt said:
Hi I am building my first system and I need a video card... I want an ATI Radeon and from looking around I have realized that there are the true ATI brand cards with the ATI Radeon chipset and there are also the third party brands with the same ATI Radeon chipset for MUCH cheaper!

Are these cards the same as the true ATI brand cards even though they are much cheaper? I want a good card with a limited budget. If the third party brand ATI cards are good: What would be some reccomended brand names of the cards.

Any replys would be greatly appreciated thanks!
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I wouldn't buy them unless it was actually ATI... I wouldn't trust it :P.

Although you can get a ATI 9800 Pro for about 100-200 dollars on ebay.... (I found one for 110 on ebay a few days ago)...
 
If you want a non-ATI brand card with the same characteristics as the original then look for "Built by ATI" and not "Powered by ATI" cards. A good choice could be Hercules (http://www.hercules.com/).
 
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For 99.9% of people on this planet, there isnt a difference between a "true" ATi card and a "powered" by ATi card as far as performance and such go. The 3rd party cards still have to meet ATi spec and ATi QC so there isnt much of a concern. You'll be using the actual chip made by ATi so it'll be the same thing powering the card so go for the cheaper one :P
 
It depends on the manufacturer...
The "Built by ATI" card is entirely made by ATI, even the resistors and capacitors on the card are exactly the same as on a genuine ATI product.
The genuine ATI part on a "Powered by ATI" card are only the chipset and the GPU. Some manufacturers then put cheaper components (even the memory could be crappy on these), so they reduce the frequency just to make it stable.
Go here: http://www.techimo.com/articles/i87.html and read between the lines ;)
 
The genuine ATI part on a "Powered by ATI" card are only the chipset and the GPU. Some manufacturers then put cheaper components (even the memory could be crappy on these), so they reduce the frequency just to make it stable.
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Very true but not so much a problem in general anymore given overall market QC and such (memory is virtually standardized to Samsung, Hynix and a select view others) and for people not looking to OC the piss out of their cards and stuff it shouldnt be a major concern :)
 
It was a decent review still .. and an intriguing point about the 5600 vs the 9600... :)
 
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